Of a Feather
by OverMaster
Summary: A lost passage from Oswald Cobblepot's past, back when he met someone who could have been close to him. But being a child in Gotham City is rough.


_Batman and all related elements belong to DC Comics and Warner._

_Not making any money out of this._

_Batman- Created by Bill Finger and LA LA LA LA LA WHAT ARE YOU SAYING ABOUT BOB KANE. Okay. Working from an early idea from Bob Kane, I guess._

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><p><strong>Of a Feather<strong>.

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><p>Oswald was short and chubby, he loved birds, and he was shy and well read. It was no wonder he would be shunned for his peers, and the umbrella did never help. That morning was far from being the first time he ever had been whacked with his own umbrella, but this new boy was fiercer and meaner than the others, even more than Sharky. When he finally stopped, however, he did something none of the others ever did. Instead of just keeping him taunting more, he asked a question.<p>

"Why do you carry this thing around, anyway?"

Oswald looked up at him from his current sitting position in the dirt. The boy was skinny, but what little muscle there was on his bones seemed firm and steady, and there was a nervous, manic energy about him even when he was standing still, examining Oswald's umbrella with a critic eye. His eyes were sharp and green, and his nose was the first one Oswald remembered as being as long and pointy as his own.

"My... My mom makes me, " Oswald replied truthfully. "Can, can I have it back, please? She will get angry if I—"

The taller boy snorted. "Your old woman? Why would she do that?"

"She isn't old, she..." Oswald sighed. "My father died of pneumonia, you'll see, because he was under the rain, so..."

"Really? Lucky you, " the boy toyed around with the umbrella, as if stabbing an imaginary enemy. "My old man never dies, no matter what. Drunk as a fish under the rain all night long, and he doesn't even sneeze. Strong as an ox..." he mumbled, using a hand to caress himself on a cheek, frown deepening. Then he asked, abruptly, "So, if I break this thing, your old woman won't make you carry it around anymore, and you won't have to be bullied over it anymore, right?"

"Actually, she'll just buy me another, money isn't a problem, and they always break mine..."

"Seriously? Oh well, worth a shot anyway, " the boy chuckled, casually swinging the umbrella around and breaking it against one of the walls. "Money isn't a problem, huh? Buy me lunch, then."

"But—"

"C'mon, I'm hungry."

"Don't you have your own—"

"No, " he growled, swinging the broken umbrella over his shoulder, which convinced Oswald.

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><p>The next day, with a new umbrella, Oswald sat down with him again, after buying him another lunch. "Um..."<p>

"Yeah?"

"I already bought your lunch, so..."

"So what?"

"So, um, why are you eating it with me?"

"Dunno."

"I mean, shouldn't you be eating with the others, who—"

"They don't like me, and I don't like them. I don't like you either, but at least there's a single one of you, and several of them."

"Ah."

"So, what's your name?"

"Oswald."

"That's a sissy momma's boy name, but if the shoe fits... I'm Jack."

"Oh." A common name, for a common boy. And yet, there also seemed to be something unusual about him.

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><p>Over the next few days, they'd repeat the routine, although Jack grew tired of breaking his umbrellas after Oswald warned him his mother would start looking into the problem herself. He didn't want to admit it, but the prospect of having Oswald's mother talking to his father had scared him shitless. But either way, his measures only delayed the unavoidable, since the man would find an excuse one way or another, no matter what.<p>

And so, one day, Jack stopped coming for more than a week, and when he returned he had an arm in a cast, and several slowly fading bruises on his face.

"What happened?"

"I fell down some stupid stairs."

"Ohhh, " Oswald said. "Um, I'm sorry, but don't feel bad, it can happen to anyone..."

"Don't bullshit me," Jack grunted, taking a bite from his lunch. "You aren't sorry at all, unless you mean sorry I came back to keep bullying you."

"... it was your father, wasn't it?"

"Do I look like a liar, stupid fat bastard?"

"I, I didn't mean that, it's just...!"

He bopped him in the nose with his good arm. "Ahhh, forget it. You ain't that stupid. Yeah, well, it was him, but no, I'm not lying either."

"I don't get it..."

Jack gave him an exasperated look and made gestures of pushing someone ahead.

"Oooohhhh..."

"Well duh, bird-brain."

"I'm sorry anyway."

"Yeah, I'm also sorry I had to come back to sit next to you."

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><p>Weeks passed, and the routine never really changed, although the hits became less frequent, Oswald's at least.<p>

They sat watching at the red twilight skies of Gotham.

"Hey, Ozz, whaddya want to do when you're old and stuff?"

"I'd like to be a dramatic actor. Performing the classics, all across the country. The Bard's works..."

"The Bard? The fat bitch from TV? So you want to crossdress?"

"The Bard! I mean Shakespeare! Hamlet! Othello! King Lear!"

"Oh, yeah, that stuff from Lit classes. I don't know, man, you're too fat and short to cut a heroic lead, you know?"

"I said it's what I'd like to do. Not that it's what I'll get to be. How about you?"

"I'd love being a comedian..."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously! Even my old man thinks I'm good at it. And he doesn't hand praise easily."

"I don't think I've ever seen telling you telling a joke."

"I don't waste my jokes around, Fatso. If you want to get a load of me, pony up with the money. That's going to be my attitude all through my—"

Oswald looked into his pocket, and offered him a few dollar bills.

Jack blinked, yanked the money away, and stood up, assuming a confident, smugly smirking pose. "Alright. Now you're taking my language. So, a Rabbi, a stripper and a cheerleader walk into a bar..."

Oswald didn't get most of those jokes. They dealt with themes he never had heard about, themes his mother would have screamed in rage against before ranting on the degenerate evils of society and strongly chiding Oswald against them.

They still made him laugh.

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><p>"Moving away?" Oswald asked, perplexed.<p>

He shrugged. "Yeah. Can't keep paying our apartment here, so we'll move back to The Cauldron."

"The... Cauldron? Do you mean... But, but that's the worst part of the city..."

He smiled, shrugging again. "It's where we belong."

"I'm sorry. If I could help..."

"Again with that? You aren't sorry, Fatso. You're only saying that so I don't give you a farewell beating."

"— it didn't work, did it?" he gulped.

He bopped his knuckles against Oswald's forehead. "Nah, it did. But only so you can owe me. So next time we meet, I can give it to you, with all the accumulated interests."

His bony, strong hand held his chubby, soft hand in a brief squeeze. Then he laughed at him, turned around, and walked away. Without one more word.

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><p>"— and that, " the Penguin reminisced, talking to the red and blue parrot he was feeding in the birdcage-filled confines of his luxury office, "was the last time I ever saw the closest thing I ever had to a human friend..."<p>

The Batman stepped out of the shadows. "What an interesting story."

"WAAAUUUGHHHH! What, what the hell are you doing here—!"

"I came for information on the Rucka Avenue shootings."

"And you felt you had enough time to waste, hiding there while listening to my PRIVATE childhood memories?!"

"I suppose I couldn't help it. I don't have many of my own."

He sneered. "No, you surely wouldn't..."

"By the way, wasn't that boy..."

"I'm sure he's left town or died long, long ago!"

There was a shared pause.

"I'm sure, as well."

"Hrmph. Good to see we can agree on _something_..."

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><p><strong>End<strong>.


End file.
